By Marcia Blondin***It’s a new year, and Nicolas King is starting anew with fresh energy, positively looking forward to whatever is coming, and practicing resilience every day. His first concert of the year at The Palm Cabaret in Vallart
a had an interesting twist: he and his Musical Director, Mark Hartman, with whom he rarely works because of conflicting schedules, asked the audience for requests! A popcorn bowl sat on a stool onstage, brimming with neatly folded pieces of white paper containing who-knew-what song titles and sometimes an even broader request, like ”anything by Barbra Streisand.”
The first half of the show was carefully-curated and well-rehearsed by the two New Yorkers, with song choices upbeat and centering around starting over and embracing new beginnings. King took Gloria Gaynor’s late 70s peppy anthem “I Will Survive” and turned it into a steady, rhythmic statement barely above a whisper, filling the lyrics with a wryness and absolute authority, empty of anger and full of straightforwardness. King slowed the song to a blues-and-jazz level, removing the need to jump up and dance to the GRAMMY-winning disco beat and allowing the determined lyrics to be heard. I loved it!
At the start of the second half of the show, King was nervously eyeing the black bowl containing the requests. He repeatedly pointed out he couldn’t possibly know all the lyrics to all the songs, and that the only accompanist he would consider for such a crazy idea was Hartman, noting that they hardly ever worked together. All of the pre-emptive apologies flew away as the pair leapt into uncharted waters, and with only a few prompts for the next word, carried the rest of the show like the seasoned pros they are. A couple of necessary key changes were made on the fly, and the result was a glorious celebration of song, some of which King had never performed publicly in his life. When he pulled out ”Don’t Rain on My Parade,” he told the story of appearing on a national TV talk show and singing it for the first time: he was five years old. Cutest kid ever!
I was sitting next to a couple of native New Yorkers—now living in California and in Vallarta on vacation. Familiar with his work, they were thrilled when King opened the following request, read the title and announced it was one of his personal top-ten favorite songs. As he launched sweetly into, “What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?” the two men’s hands reached out to one another and held on tight. When the song was over, and tears wiped away, the one closest to me said, ”That’s our song; at our wedding (pointing to his husband), as a surprise he sang it to me in the middle of our ceremony!” The husband turned to me, smiling wistfully, adding, ”And, he married me anyway.”
